Trangia stoves are a tough design to beat for a homemade stove builder. Their advantages are many. Drawbacks, few. Dances with Mice sums it up well:

Trangia burners :

- are more fuel efficient than any home-made stove, according to Sgt. Rock's study(True, considering stoves tested in the study, ed.). That finding confirmed my own unscientific gut feeling, btw.

- don't need to be primed. They also don't need to warm-up before you can start cooking.

- are easy to adjust for simmering. Few home-mades are.

- can be extinguished. Most home-mades just burn until fuel extinction.

- have a sealable lid. Very few (any?) home-mades do. This means unburned fuel can be saved without having to pour it back into your fuel bottle. Also for overnight trips you can just fill the stove and leave your fuel bottle at home.

- are bomb proof. You can step on one without denting it. Matter of fact you can jump up and down on one without hurting anything but maybe your foot.

So Trangias eliminate some of the fuss factor compared to home-mades. There's no need to accurately gauge how much fuel to add since it's easy to put out the stove and save any excess. There's no prime and light or warm up routine. Trangias simmer, so that may open other cooking options. And you don't have to worry about crushing a Trangia.

Whether any of those advantages are worth a few more ounces is a personal call.

The one big drawback is the weight of a Trangia-over three ounces for the burner.

So why aren't do-it-yourselfers offering light, alternative designs with the same characteristics? One reason, in my opinion. Most of the features of a Trangia are simple for a stovie to duplicate but finding a container that is re-sealable and of the correct dimensions to use as a burner is tough to find.I found one though.

Got2B hair products makes a product called Defiant that comes in a 2" diameter by 2 1/2" tall aluminum can with a re-sealable lid. I've been finding them in Wal-Marts and some drug stores.

The gasket that comes in the lid is worthless so I fitted mine with a 2" rubber washer from Home Depot and installed a ring of flame protector cloth held in place by 1 1/2" diameter aluminum tube from a butane can.

I wasted some time making an adaptor ring to fit the stove into a Westwind stand only to discover that the stove sits at exactly the correct level without it. Oops.

I carry a Heineken pot usually so I adapted it for that use as well.

The end result is a stove that can be simmered(next on the list), snuffed and resealed.

It weighs 1.25 oz. empty and will hold 3 oz. of fuel. Testing so far is showing 11 minute boils(right where I like to see it)and around six boils per fill-up, the same as a Trangia.

Skids

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein, (attributed)

Excellent Skids, functions just like a Trangia, even better. All you have to do is modify the lid off another container and use it as the simmer device. I like the size of it and like you say it's the right height for the pot support. It's amazing how stove makers have eyes for containers that can be used for making a stove.

What does a can of the product cost at Walmart? Does it contain alcohol so we can heat water to empty it?

If you make one once in a while the product cost probably doesn't hurt much, but making a bunch of them would get costly. Finding a container that seals and is the right size for a trangia knockoff was cool. Any progress yet on the simmer mod?

"People are not persuaded by what we say, but rather by what they understand."

Trangia's are not very expensive. The key here is the weight savings. It would be nice if you could find a container lid that sits snuggly on top of your burner like the trangia simmer lid. Nice job skids.

"Many of lifes failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up".....Thomas Edison

I think the savings come only if you go out for a few days and not carry a bottle of fuel to replenish the burner. Trangias to me are short term burners. Many will say you can use only the amount of fuel needed and then snuff it out and put the lid on. That's true. Some will say I can use 17ml of fuel and wait till the stove goes out and voila!! It all depends on your requirements/needs/likes.

zelph wrote:How well does it do with a slight breeze without a windscreen? Is it sensitive to wind/breeze? In a confined space does it flare up?

Pretty well but a windscreen makes it better. It burns pretty steady with no flare-ups in confined spaces.

Ridgerunner wrote:Trangia's are not very expensive. The key here is the weight savings. It would be nice if you could find a container lid that sits snuggly on top of your burner like the trangia simmer lid. Nice job skids.

Thanks!

sudden wrote:If you make one once in a while the product cost probably doesn't hurt much, but making a bunch of them would get costly. Finding a container that seals and is the right size for a trangia knockoff was cool. Any progress yet on the simmer mod?

No simmer lid yet. Maybe this weekend. The simmer lid will be easy if the stove is used in the Westwind stand. I can just copy the Trangia simmer lid. For a Heineken can set-up, it's a bit more of a problem.

For snuffing the flame I just turn the lid upside down and it kills the flame very well.

Skids

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein, (attributed)

Yes I used plumber's cloth. The boil times decreased very slightly as the fuel level decreased-just like the Trangia test I did a while back. Remember that one?

If you can find one of the cans up North, Zelph, you should make one with a wrap of fiberglass around a 1 3/4"-1 7/8" diameter inside can. You might need to block off part of the center hole to keep it from running away. I'd be interested to see how it does with a fiberglass wick but I don't have your skill with fiberglass.

I'll send you a can if you can't find one.

Skids

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein, (attributed)

The center portion can be blocked off with a stainless steel sink drain screen. It will still allow for the fuel to poured in. Once the wick is lit the ring of fire creates a vacuum in the center. Vapor still comes up and out and mixes with the flames and hopefully burns completely. I'll do a search locally to find the container. I would fill it with the same stuff as whats in the StarLyte and cover it with screen to see how it does. The small diameter of the opening is what determines the rate of boil and surface exposed. The Ion and StarLyte are made of the same container but burn at different rates because of area exposed and wick material. There are a lot of good things to be said about slow burning stoves. Tony from OZ likes the slow burning ones. There are a couple down sides to them also.

In the process of making paper wood fibers are made to align themselves parallel to each other.They use a vibrating copper mesh belt that the wood slurry lays upon. As it moves it vibrates and all the tiny fibers align themselves. Maybe some of you have seen how vibratory bowls align product and travel up the ramp single file to drop one by one into a feed tube. The results of that can be seen when folding a sheet of paper. Fold it with the grain and the fold is nice and clean. fold it the other direction against the grain and the fold is ragged, looks yucky. The material I use in the StarLyte is manufactured in the same way. all the fibers are aligned parallel to each other. Being parallel allows for the best capillary action to bring the fuel to the surface quickly.